What Does Jeremiah 7:29 Mean?
Shear off your set-apart hair, O Jerusalem, and throw it away; lift up a lament on the bare heights, for the LORD has rejected and let go of the generation of his overflow.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the LORD hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.THE KEY
Jerusalem’s hair is called her נֵזֶר (nēzer, “crown” or “consecration”), so cutting it off turns the visible sign of being set apart into a sign of grief.
THE MEANING
This word lets you see consecration turned into grief: the crown is cut away, cast aside, and lament rises where it can be heard. It names the LORD’s rejection and forsaking of a whole generation without softening the rupture.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A sign of being set apart does not make a generation immune to rejection.
THE ROOT
נִזְרֵךְ
nizrekh
GROWS FROM
נזר
To set apart or dedicate; the root also carries the sense of consecration.
“set-apart hair” in this verse is nizrekh. Jeremiah calls the hair a נֵזֶר (nēzer, “crown” or “consecration”), a word that holds together a visible crown and the idea of being set apart. Cutting it off makes the sign of consecration itself part of the lament.
ALSO GROWS
nāzîr: One set apart; a Nazirite.
נָזִיר
The shared root links Jerusalem’s hair with the visible sign of a person’s consecration.
nēzer: Consecration; crown or diadem.
נֵזֶר
The verse’s word for hair echoes both crown and consecration, so its removal signifies more than a change in appearance.
עֶבְרָתוֹ
ʿevrāṯô
GROWS FROM
עבר
To pass over, cross, or go beyond; עֶבְרָה (ʿevrāh) can mean fury or overflowing anger.
“overflow” in this verse is ʿevrāṯô. The KJV’s “wrath” belongs to a word family whose basic movement is crossing or going beyond, and whose noun עֶבְרָה (ʿevrāh, “fury”) can suggest anger overflowing. Here that word describes the condition of a whole generation.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvar: To pass over or cross.
עָבַר
This basic motion gives the wrath word its sense of going beyond or overflowing.
ʿăvērah: Transgression; a crossing or violation.
עֲבֵרָה
The shared root preserves the image of crossing a boundary, while Jeremiah applies its fury-related form to an entire generation.
THE PATTERN
When devastation is named, Scripture lets grief become visible in the body and in lament.
In that day the Lord, the LORD of hosts, called to weeping, to wailing, to shaved heads, and to girding on sackcloth.They shall also gird themselves with sackcloth, and a shudder shall cover them. Shame shall be upon all faces, and baldness upon all their heads.Be worn down, and mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to a face cast down.THE THREAD
All the days of the vow of his separation no blade shall pass over his head. Until the days are filled, in which he separates himself unto the LORD, he shall be set apart, and shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow and run free.Numbers ties נֵזֶר (nēzer, “consecration”) to a vow of separation and to hair left uncut. Jeremiah uses that same word-family for Jerusalem’s hair, then commands its removal, making the sign of being set apart carry the verse’s lament.
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